How to Find an Academic Job As a Physician
Job hunting—a daunting process for anyone—seems especially tough for physicians who are looking for academic jobs. Learning where to look, what steps to take and how to locate resources appears to be a complex process, but finding an academic job as a physician is simple and straightforward.
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Instructions
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Prepare a curriculum vitae. A curriculum vitae is similar to a resume, but with more detail and in a longer format, according to the Purdue University Writing Center. Although most professionals search for jobs with a resume, physicians submit CVs to universities, recruiters and search firms. Your name, date of birth, contact information, chronological educational history, academic and non-academic work history, research papers published or presented, conference presentations, awards received and research projects on which you participated should be part of the curriculum vitae. Each category should have its own section header.
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Visit career search resources created by professional organizations and publications. Most physician professional specialty organizations and their respective journals offer academic job board services and employment ads, either in print or online—and sometimes in both formats. For example, if you are a cardiologist who is searching for an academic job in a cardiology division of a medical school, you might use tools developed by the American Heart Association or the American College of Cardiology or one of their professional journals. The New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association also feature academic jobs on their respective web sites. You can submit your CV on any of these sites or to listings you find on them.
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Find an academic job by searching specific sites that cater to academic physicians. The Association of American Medical Colleges, the professional association that represents life in academic medicine, offers a centralized resource for academic career planning, including links to search for academic physician jobs. Other sites, such as Academic Physician and Scientist, also provide searchable lists of academic jobs catering to doctors and researchers.
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Target specific institutions that interest you. Medical schools post their open faculty positions on their web sites, either in the administration section or in the human resources section. If, for example, you wish to join the faculty of the Harvard University School of Medicine, search for academic physician jobs on Harvard's web site.
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Hire an academic search firm. Some physicians opt to use a professional academic recruiter or search firm to find an academic job. Instead of sending out CVs to several job listings or posting them online, you merely need to talk with a recruiter about the type of academic job you are looking for, send in a CV, and let the recruiter do the searching. Although there is a fee involved in this service, it can reduce the amount of time you spend looking for an academic job.
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Tips & Warnings
Tap into your network of current and former colleagues and medical school classmates to help in your search.
